A Declaration of Faith of English People Remaining at Amsterdam in Holland
A confession in twenty-seven articles printed in 1611 by the part of John Smyth’s congregation that stayed with Thomas Helwys. It sets out believers’ baptism, the independence of each congregation, and the teaching that God would have all people saved.
The title page is dated 1611 and names no author; the confession speaks for the “English people remaining at Amsterdam”, and the printed letter that follows it is directed against Smyth. McGlothlin, who prints it, says that Helwys drew it up. Article 10 defines the church as a company of faithful people joined to the Lord and to one another by baptism upon their own confession of faith and of sins. Articles 13 and 14 require every church to receive its members by such baptism and deny that baptism belongs to infants. Articles 11 and 12 give every congregation, however small, the whole of Christ’s ordinances and deny any church a prerogative over another.
On grace the confession departs from the Reformed churches of its day: God, it says, has predestined that all who believe shall be saved, would have all people saved, and is the author of no one’s condemnation (article 5), and those who have received grace may fall away (article 7). Article 24 calls magistracy a holy ordinance of God and says that magistrates may be members of the church. It is cited in the First Baptist Congregations.
Cited in
- 1609, estimated date